


Regrowth

by moreagaara



Series: Original Works [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Horror, Body Modification, Botany, Cross-Post, Cross-Posted on deviantArt, Disasters, Druids, Elemental Magic, Experimentation, Fictional Religion & Theology, For Science!, Gen, Global Warming, Human Experimentation, Magic, Magic and Science, Magic-Users, Medical Experimentation, Multiple Perspectives, Natural Disasters, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Originally Posted on deviantART, Plantbending, Plants, Recovery, Religion, Science, Science Experiments, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24423424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreagaara/pseuds/moreagaara
Series: Original Works [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1813708
Kudos: 5





	1. The Stranger

At first glance, the traveler appeared no different from any other. He was an older, scholarly gentleman, and he had a large, battle-built companion with him who looked like he crushed stones before breakfast each morning, and the pair of them had a large collection of bags, primarily of books. The first odd thing was that the scholarly man’s companion parted ways with him in a friendly manner when they walked into town. The second was that the scholarly man bought only a variety of seeds, fruits, honey, and a large supply of water from the market. The third was that he didn’t seem to mind being robbed blind by the various young children scampering around him. The merchant from whom he was purchasing water at the time awkwardly pointed them out to him, wondering if perhaps he simply hadn’t noticed them.

“Oh, yes, them,” the scholar looked at one of the children, who promptly whisked their hand out of his pocket; the child’s eyes widened when he produced a candy and gave it to them, then ran off before he could change his mind. “Anything they steal that’s important will find its way back to me by nightfall,” he replied with a shrug.

“You’re a mage?” the merchant asked with some nervousness, carefully fetching down the last barrel of water with shaking hands. Mages, after all, were dangerous, fey creatures, and were not to be interacted with in any way.

“I am a scientist, sir,” the scholar responded with a chuckle. “Not a _mage_.” Relieved, the merchant accepted his coin, believing that the scholar couldn’t use magic. Which was far from the scholar’s meaning—he could and frequently did use magic; he just believed it was a force to be experimented with and understood. That use was how he was able to tow his many carts along without help back to his camp in the just-barely-within-walking-distance woods.

The scholar raised an eyebrow when he noticed that there was a healthy, if desperate-looking man waiting for him in his camp. A moment was all he needed to tell that the man in question was a thief and a murderer, and believed him to be an easy mark. The man stumbled over himself in a most theatric manner once he was within earshot, gasping something about please you have to help me, and they’re after me, and being innocent he swore it…the scholar tolerated his begging, having spotted the two peacekeepers in the trees nearby, clearly hunting the man now pleading for mercy.

“Steady on,” he calmly injected into the man’s pause for breath. “Stand up and calm down.” He didn’t miss the flash of victory in the man’s eyes, but pretended he had seen nothing. “What exactly are you being accused of?” he asked, not so much interested in whether the man was innocent or not, but rather in the story he would spin.

“Murder,” the man settled on, clearly making up the story as he went. “I swear I didn’t do it—even if it was me, it was an accident, I tell you!” The scholar gestured for him to calm down and continue. The man took a breath, using the time to think a little bit ahead. “I just had tea with her, I didn’t—I don’t know anything about poison, but she just…but everyone thinks I…” _Ah,_ the scholar thought to himself, marveling at the man’s playacting abilities; had he not been on his guard, he might have believed the story.

“And I take it the peacekeepers are after you?” the scholar asked, not completely without sympathy. The man nodded vigorously. The scholar considered; the two nearby peacekeepers had been watching and listening to the entire conversation, and seemed amused for their parts. If things did go horribly wrong, they would provide a good backup plan, but he _did_ need a test subject… The first test would be to see just how determined this man was to rob him, he decided, so he opened one of the water barrels and shifted about three-quarters of the water to a dimensional pocket. The transference was completely silent, and took only a moment and a gesture disguised as an indication to the man to climb in.

The man hesitated, but obeyed. Once inside, the scholar replaced the barrel’s lid, adding a reverse-polarity silencing spell—the man could be heard within the barrel, but could not hear the actions of humans outside of the barrel—as he did. From there, he beckoned the peacekeepers over. They looked over at the barrel very suspiciously, but decided to play along for the moment. First, they asked if the scholar had seen the man inside the barrel, describing him perfectly.

“Come now, Keepers,” the scholar replied with a smile. “You know perfectly well that I did and where I put him.” The female Keeper raised a sharp eyebrow at him, and looked pointedly at the barrel. The scholar merely smiled. “So what is the actual story?”

The male Keeper did not look amused. “He stole a sacred artifact that killed an entire town. The artifact was eventually found completely destroyed in a holy forest, which was dying as a result of his actions.” The scholar could not stop his expression changing to one of great impress. “The Church of the Glade wants him taken back for the crime of heresy, and our home city wants him taken back for being a serial thief and murderer.”

 _Fascinating how far down the priorities list murder gets when your planet is dying…_ the scholar thought to himself. “I would like to keep him, and I would appreciate being placed into contact with your city and the Glade to explain myself.” The Keepers folded their arms; the female shuffled closer to the barrel, clearly meaning to take it before he could respond. The male, however, stepped slightly further away to converse with his overseers; after a moment, he shook his head at the female, who shifted her weight away from the barrel to watch her partner. Eventually, the male approached the scholar and offered the device in to which he had been speaking.

The scholar took it and examined it briefly; it was a primitive system, one of the oldest long-range callers humanity had ever created. A robust system, the only flaw the scholar could find was that there was a touch of static; he depressed the send button and spoke. “Good morrow, to whom do I speak?”

There was a slight flick of static when he released the button, and a pause before any answer came. “This is the Chief Seer of the Church of the Glade, Oradell Heights speaking. With me is Mayor Amaran of Herrin City. To whom do we speak?”

 _Interesting,_ the scholar thought, then pressed the button to reply. “I am Botanist Adrian Kenworth, formerly of the Capital Isle and the High Academy, and currently without titles.” He simply released the button after this; had he still belonged to the Capital Isle and the High Academy, he would have outranked the pair by a long shot and been permitted to ask his questions first. But since he was forbidden from using the Academy as a current duty-position, despite his knowledge and years of hard work, they outranked him and could steer the conversation as they pleased. It might rankle him that the church had power over everyone, but if he wanted to keep his test subject, he needed to play nice.

“Botanist Kenworth, we have been informed that you have in your captivity a prisoner for whom both my Church and the Mayor’s City have been looking, and that you wish to keep him. Why do you subvert the will of the gods?” Seer Heights asked, and Adrian closed his eyes and quickly counted to ten before he could snap out his true feelings. If the Seer wanted to play this way…

“Seer, with all due respect, I seek to aid the planet in its recovery from That Which Occurred,” he eventually said, successfully calm. “In order to do this, I need volunteers to help me with my botany studies—” _Better not admit this is all highly experimental._ “—and this man would be useful in that regard. I do not seek to undermine the gods, but to help them; as terrible as this man is, I believe he could find redemption in the eyes of the gods through helping me with my work.” Adrian released the button, sighing slightly. No one would ever believe his findings—no one ever had—and now was not the time to bring them up.

There was a long wrinkle of silence through the long-range caller. Eventually the Seer spoke again. “I would know more about your studies, Botanist Kenworth,” they said, a little more mildly than before. “They could be of interest to the Church.”

 _Not this again,_ Adrian thought to himself, but out loud he said, “Certainly, Seer. If you wish to send an observer or a scribe to me, I will show them what I have been working on.” He could hardly refuse, even if every aspect of his work went against the teachings of any Church on the planet. It had so far for every single Church and Temple he had encountered on his way here, and he had no reason to suspect this one would be any different. He only hoped the results would not be too violent this time…

“Very well, Botanist. The Mayor and I have decided that the two Peacekeepers will remain with you until my Lord Scribe arrives at your abode,” the Seer informed him; most likely, this was the first the Mayor was hearing about the decision, but he couldn’t really refuse the Seer’s decision either. Like Adrian, his hands were tied with regards to anything the Church and its leaders did.

“And the prisoner, Chief Seer?” Adrian prodded gently; it was his primary concern, after all. Another wrinkle of silence passed over the caller.

“I would know what sorts of work you wish to do with him before I make my decision,” the Seer declared, breaking the silence.

“The short version, Chief Seer, is that I would make him one with the natural world. Exactly how I intend to do this would take far too long to explain over a caller, and I would not want to keep you away from your followers.” More importantly, Adrian didn’t want to run the risk of upsetting the Peacekeepers. If they became violent, he would have to defend himself, and that would get messy and possibly require another move.

The final silence was longer than all the others by what felt like a thousand years. Certainly long enough that Adrian nervously tapped his foot against the ground while he waited, which made both Peacekeepers shift their weight so that they were balanced. “You may proceed,” the Seer replied; Adrian sagged in relief and discarded his half-formed plans of kidnapping his would-be attacker. “If you would return the caller to the Peacekeeper,” the Seer said, half-request and half-order, and Adrian didn’t bother to reply before handing the device back to the male Peacekeeper.

He took his partner to one side and conferred both with her and with his caller; Adrian, for his part, took his time to set up a few spells for his new test subject. Far easier to perform the spells he would need to cast as rituals; they took longer to cast and could be disrupted more easily while casting, but they also lasted longer and took less raw magical energy. As a student of the Academy, Adrian had once collaborated on a project to determine why; the paper had been well-received and Adrian had begun casting nearly everything as a ritual if he had the time and materials. Conservation of power had once meant that he could cast more spells than his peers; now it frequently meant the difference between living another day and brutal injury or death, and death meant needing to be rescued by his living ship once again.

He was half finished setting up the first of his rituals when the Peacekeepers returned, neither of them looking particularly pleased. “So since we’re coming with you…I am Wynn and my partner is Jasper,” the female Peacekeeper—Wynn—informed Adrian, her arms folded and fingers tapping. “First tell us what you’re doing, and then tell us where we’re going.”

Adrian narrowed his eyes at her tone, but decided to let it go for now. “I am setting up a few spells that will prevent our…guest…from trying anything. The first will prevent him from leaving my company specifically, by way of making him feel sick if he strays too far. The second will make him not ask too many questions about me, by distracting him whenever he does think of a question he would like answered. The third will make him just ever so slightly too late to take advantage of any opportunity to harm me, again by way of distraction. The fourth is a failsafe, in case he manages to get through the other three spells, and will render him unable to harm me.” All of them extremely complex spells, which would require even more complex rituals, and Jasper took a step back at the idea that any one person could so easily speak of casting such things, especially without even pausing to consider the amount of strength that would take.

Wynn, however, refused to be impressed. “And _if_ you should manage to be successful with them, where would we be going.”

“Keeper Wynn, I would advise you to be more cautious with your words,” Adrian informed her, significantly more coolly than he had been thus far. “I would not talk of casting spells such as I have described without being confident that I could perform them. _After_ I am finished with my spellwork, we will be heading to the northern coastline, and I would like to ask the pair of you to follow us out of sight. It would be best to not test the no-questions spell’s limits.”

“The northern coast is cursed,” Jasper managed, then yelped when Wynn elbowed him sharply.

“I am aware of the stories, Keeper Jasper, and I would not have made my home so near to the northern coast if it actually was cursed.” Adrian turned his now-icy gaze upon the Keeper, who bit his tongue over his next words. “I am also aware that nothing grows in that area. That is not because of a magical curse.” _It’s because that’s where an old, swamped city dumped its toxic waste. Not that either of them will ever believe that there was a city to the north, or that it was the reason the ocean is so much nearer than it once was. Even if I were to show them the sunken ruins, they would claim that the place must have belonged to the Ancients or some other such nonsense._

“Everyone who goes to that place dies,” Wynn countered, stubbornly.

“Specifically, everyone who drinks the water in that place dies,” Adrian clarified. “I have passed through the area dozens of times, and I have yet to perish.” _Except for the one time I drank the water and had to be rescued and resuscitated._ “Once, I met another traveler in the area…she was coming from the west, if I recall correctly, and she drank the water. I was only just able to save her life, and she decided to help me with my work in return.”

Wynn worked her jaw, trying to think of a way to continue the argument, but Adrian turned away to finish the first of his rituals. Fortunately, it would work just fine if the target of his spell was restrained in a barrel, and he only needed a few minor alterations to the spell if he wanted to cast it on a person he couldn’t directly see. Once the ritual was sufficiently grounded, Adrian took his place in the drawn circle, than half-sang the words of his spell, adding a few flourishes when he could as though dancing his way through his ritual—such things strengthened his work.

There was a flicker of electric discharge when his spell completed, and Adrian didn’t so much as hesitate when he felt it. The moment he felt the crackle of completion, he reset the materials within his circle to begin the second spell, once again half-singing his words and dancing in the portions he particularly needed to be strong. Again came the electric discharge, and again Adrian didn’t hesitate, but merely replaced his components for the third spell. This spell he cast entirely by dancing, eyes closed so that he was forced to depend on his visualization of what movements were required. The third spell didn’t crackle, but it did flicker with heat when it came to life, and the fourth spell was immediately set up. The fourth spell was entirely sung, and Adrian smiled as he did it; the song he had selected for it was one he had himself written as a young boy, when he had thought he would be a musician. Before the city where he had worked had replaced all its living musicians with robotic, computerized ones, having entered into a kind of arms race with a nearby city, to see which of them could create the most grandiose production of music. The fourth spell whispered its activity, and Adrian sighed. Had he still been religious, he would have thanked the gods that all had gone so well.

But the gods didn’t exist, so he merely broke his circles and took a drink from his hip flask; the flask was full of a honey-like substance, thinned out with the watery sap from one of his experiments, and was loaded with energy enough to keep him on his feet for the three hours of walking until sunset. Both of the Peacekeepers were staring at him. Four rituals of complexity unlike anything they had seen before, and he only needed a drink to keep going? Wynn was the first to nod dumbfounded obedience and disappear into the trees when Adrian signaled for her to do so, and Jasper stumbled over himself to follow her.


	2. The Thief

“Finally,” Galvar the thief mumbled, at last able to climb out of the water barrel his target had made him hide in. At least it had been an effective hiding spot; he hadn’t heard anything that passed between the mark and the stubborn as shit Keepers that had been following him. The mark’s back was turned, a perfect opportunity—except he’d managed to lose his knife in the water barrel and had to fish it out. By the time he turned back around, the opportunity was gone. _Dammit all._ At least he’d get another chance later.

Galvar stepped away from the barrel to wring out his clothing, then paused when he heard a tumble of water behind him. He was about to turn around and ask his target what in the hells, but then a sneeze—then another, and then a third and fourth—rattled him. _Gods,_ it had been cold and wet in there! He stripped the waterlogged clothing off and wrung it out as much as possible, fully intending to put it back on and suffer—

“Here,” his mark said, holding out a set of worn clothing that should at least be close to fitting, and offering to take his old, soggy set. Galvar hesitated before he accepted.

“Thanks.” Wouldn’t do to catch a cold before he could kill the idiot and steal all his shit. He dressed quickly and cinched the clothing as tight as it would go; considering how much skinnier the mark was, it was funny just how baggy the offered clothes were. “So, eh…” he started, not quite sure how to finish off his question, or exactly what he wanted to ask. The Peacekeepers appeared to have vanished, and it would be nice to know what had happened with them, but it would also be nice to know where his mark was heading, so he could know what direction to run after the fuck was dead.

“We’re going north for now, as far as we can get before nightfall,” his mark answered. At least that was one of his questions, but holy hells, the man was even stupider than he’d first thought. There was nothing worthwhile up north. Not even the most desperate sorts had hideouts up there—it was much too far even to the nearest farmhouse from there, and then there was the death coast if you went too far.

Galvar sighed and ran his hands through his hair. As much as he wanted to yell at the dumbass for being a dumbass and try to make him go somewhere reasonable, it was probably better to just let the damned fool do his thing. It meant less effort on his part, anyway; after all, a fool could be tripped or pushed into a sand pit and left to die that way, and north meant there was no one around to save him. “Arright,” he muttered, and picked up one of the lighter bags the mark had with him; he could at least pretend to be helpful, and snoop while he was following along after his mark, and the wagon followed him.

He fished through the bag he held curiously. There were what seemed like hundreds of pockets, but nothing of real value in them. Bits of rock and metal in vials and pouches, bags of seeds, books with fanciful drawings, odd measuring tools…funny how some of the pouches and pockets seemed to generate some of their contents while he was digging in them. He thought very seriously about asking the mark about the weirdness, but shook his head at his foolishness. He’d probably just bought himself a magic bag for the gods only knew what reason.

They reached a glade when the big sun had just touched the horizon, the little sun having long since gone below. Galvar sighed and dropped the bag carelessly in the pile of bags that had been floating along after the mark; it briefly occurred to him that such things weren’t natural in the slightest, but then again, if the mark had one magic bag, why not have more? He wound up shrugging and caught a squirrel for himself, which he speared on his knife and roasted over the idiot rich man’s fire. The rich man, meanwhile, simply drank something from one of the many flasks he carried at his hip and pulled one of the books out of the bag pile to read.

He seemed completely absorbed in the thing, and only occasionally glanced up when Galvar stood to walk around and explore the clearing. There was a funny barrier between the trees, one that resisted Galvar’s attempts to pass through, but if he shoved enough, it gave. Once between the trees, Galvar carefully walked as silently as possible, finding several good places where he could wait for his mark to fall asleep. There were some pretty recent footprints of other travelers, but none so recent that Galvar was worried they were still in the area. _North, eh?_ He considered the prospect, settling himself ungracefully on the lowest branch of the nearest tree.

The mark was still a damned idiot for wanting to go there. But there might at least be some good in the idea, now he was thinking about it. No one was actually stupid enough to go and live in the north, which meant that no one would think to look for him there. Of course, he’d need to be careful about leaving false trails, so no one would actually follow him into the north…but he was already skilled at that much. It was how he survived outside of the clutches of the law so easily. Only the two Peacekeepers from earlier had even been able to follow him for any considerable length of time.

Galvar folded his arms behind his head and leaned backwards, one leg bent at the knee. He looked up at the sky. Considering the sorts of stuff the mark was carrying, he’d have a devil of a time selling any of it. But he’d get good coin for the seeds if he went to a city that had to buy crops from a long way off to feed itself, and the city might also have a market for the other shit the mark was carrying around…whatever it was. He meant to stay awake for the night so he could watch for opportunities to do the deed, but somehow he fell asleep in the tree.

When he woke up, the great sun had half-crested the horizon, and the damned mark was already awake and moving. _This is a lot later than I usually wake up…_ Galvar thought, brow furrowed. Had the mark done something? It would’ve had to have been while he was in the barrel…and he _did_ seem to have quite a lot of magic things. If he was a mage or something, it would explain a lot of weirdness. He meant to ask if the mark had spelled him all throughout the day, but never seemed to manage. The first time he tried, he noticed a wasp buzzing around nearby and immediately closed his mouth to prevent it from flying in. The second time, he tripped over a tree root he hadn’t noticed before. The third time he did manage to speak, but it was only to note the heat and how his mark hadn’t need to stop for a break yet. The mark’s only response was to give him one of his flasks and say that he could ride on the cart for a while.

 _That wasn’t what I meant, fucker,_ Galvar silently growled, but accepted the flask and hopped up on the front seat of the apparently self-driving cart. More magic and more evidence that Galvar had been spelled somehow. He supposed there might be some sort of worthwhile alcohol in the flask, although that did raise the question of how the bastard had been steady all day, despite frequent sips from similar flasks. He got his answer when he had a sip himself; there was no alcohol in the flask. Instead, Galvar tasted honey-water. He swirled the drink around his mouth a bit, considering, then swallowed; when the honey taste faded, he was left with several fruit-tastes, some of which he couldn’t identify. Strawberry was definitely involved, and so was apple…

He wasn’t sure when he’d finished off the entire flask, but he leaned back and sighed, balancing the flask on the seat next to him. At some point they had left the forest behind, and were in a grassy plain between the Good Lands and the swampy north that fast became a killer even to those with woodcraft. The great sun was nearing its peak, which meant that they’d made good time while Galvar had been drinking the not-alcohol. He picked the flask up again, surprised to find it was again full; when he drank again, he found that it contained a slightly headier version of the earlier liquid. He wasn’t certain if it truly contained alcohol, but he wasn’t going to turn it down if it did. If it was alcohol, then it was some quality stuff. If it wasn’t alcohol, it sure as hells made him feel content to sit up on the cart in the sunshine.

He finished the flask off again and put it down, but seconds later his mouth felt dryer than it would if he’d eaten a bowlful of salt. Somehow the flask was full again, and somehow the liquid inside tasted more definitely like alcohol—though definitely some sort of well-honeyed mead. _Hells yes,_ he thought, happily drinking the entire flask. Definitely magic at play here, but whatever. Magic was great if it could get him drunk for free; he experimentally put the flask down, kept his hand on it, and picked it up again. Still empty. But if he released his fingers and waited five seconds, it refilled. _Score._

He laid down on the driver’s seat of the cart, head propped up behind one arm, and saluted the mage, who didn’t seem to have noticed anything. He shrugged to himself and merrily kept drinking, noting that the faithful liquid grew steadily stronger with each refill. His pants became uncomfortably tight after a few rounds, so he loosened them; his shirt started to strain a bit after a few more rounds and he had to unbutton the lowest button. Then he had to loosen his pants again and undo the second to last button. He lazily pushed his pants down an inch or so, so they would stop digging into his beer gut, then pushed his shirt up. Another couple rounds put the oddity out of his mind; a few more put his body’s jiggling in time with the cart well out of his mind. It was just nice to be lying around in the sunshine with nothing to do but drink…

The cart stopped; he quickly finished the last round before looking around. He felt pleasantly warm from his day lazing around in the sun, but his clothes were definitely pinching in uncomfortable places now—upper arms right in the armpit and the cuff where the sleeve ended, a band across his chest right where the shirt had hitched over an enormous beer gut, the waistband of his pants right under the same beer gut, rear end, thighs, and calves…he rolled off the cart and landed heavily with a grunt, not expecting quite that much weight to hit his elbows and knees.

“You all right?” the mage called back. Galvar pushed himself up awkwardly, locking his legs so he could stand more easily. _What in the actual hells?_ he wondered, looking down at his expanded body and clutching the magic flask for dear life.

“I’m not sure,” was his final answer. He waddled—actually waddled—over to the mage, confused and starting to get angry. Even that short distance made him feel winded. He started to ask a question, felt something try to distract him with the sheer weirdness of his new, fleshy body, but the distraction only made him feel more determined. “What…the hells have you done to me?”

The mage’s mouth twitched. Bastard. Galvar growled, but the sound was a lot less threatening now he wasn’t fast enough to slice the fucker’s throat before he could blink. “Well, I’d say maybe next time, don’t try to rob the magically inclined…” the mage drawled, darting out of range of Galvar’s attempted grapple and tutting at him. “But I think we both know there isn’t going to be a next time, hmm?”

“Are you going to feed me to death or something, huh?” Galvar shouted, panting from his sudden lunge. Funny how he wasn’t being distracted anymore. _Did I break one of his spells?_ Didn’t matter if he couldn’t get to the bastard to kill him. He’d have to sneak up on him in the middle of the night, and that meant practicing moving quietly. Not impossible, but difficult considering how fat he now was.

“Certainly not. That would be a waste of resources. You do, however, need to be a bit fatter for my purposes,” the mage answered, now eyeing him critically. “Give it another couple hundred pounds. Easy enough if you keep drinking your medicine as much as you did today. At that rate, you should be ready for work by the time we reach my ship.” The mage tilted his head critically to one side. “You should be pleased that you’ll finally be contributing something to society instead of leeching off it.”

Galvar roared fury and lurched towards the mage again, hands outstretched, but the mage only nimbly stepped to the side and tripped him. Galvar went sprawling; he struggled to regain his feet until he felt plants crawling all over him. Then he started flailing and trying to shove the plants off—ivy of some sort—to no avail, and so he started screaming in the hopes that someone besides the mage would hear him.

Someone did. One of the Peacekeepers that had been following him since the incident with the artifact he’d meant to fence and he’d had to break to stop it from killing him. He froze, uncertain whether it was better to throw himself on their potential mercy or to stay with the mage, but the Peacekeeper solved the problem by hitting him over the head and Galvar discovered that unconsciousness was a lot more comfortable than being awake.


	3. The Swamp

“Okay, what _exactly_ are you planning to do with this man? No more sidestepping, no more obtuse answers, I want the full truth!” Keeper Wynn shouted, wrenching the ivy growing from Adrian’s arm off his new test subject, and planting herself firmly between them, gun drawn and aimed at Adrian.

Adrian hissed and carefully twitched the ivy to wrap around himself; there was enough sunlight to heal the bruises in the plant between its natural resilience and human-boosted healing. Wynn hadn’t been at all gentle, and many of his stems were badly injured. “The swamps just there are the result of old toxic waste,” he started. “On their own, the toxins will decay to harmlessness over a few hundred years, and nature will recover after another few hundred. The swamps in turn will die off completely in that time, which means an end to just about everything that lives in the area, with cascading negative effects in the surrounding areas, along with even higher global temperatures.” He held up the hand that was not covered in recovering ivy to stop Wynn from bellowing about what that had to do with anything. “The plants, and especially the old-growth trees in the area, cannot process the toxic waste. A human can, for a time. My idea is to have trees planted in humans—living humans specifically—to take advantage of a human’s ability to process the toxins and a tree’s survivability. They will then be placed in the area to try and maintain the swamp. Our friend is to be the first of them.”

“And this requires you to force-feed him to—to that?!” Wynn gestured at the unconscious pile of meat behind her.

“Yes, because previous research has shown that for one to two months after implantation, humans tend to eat very little. For perfectly understandable reasons,” Adrian grumbled, flaring some of his leaves to catch more sunlight; he felt significantly better, as always, with his leaves spread, but he remembered how the initial months of adjusting to the ivy growing and connecting properly to his body had been hellish. “That tends to kill the plant faster than the human. Having extra stores of energy means the plant has something to draw off while it grows.” Adrian had to quickly shield himself against projectiles of light when Wynn shot him, and heaved a sigh of relief that his speed had not been affected from his many years of near-exclusive ritual use.

“You are a gods-damned monster!” Wynn yelled, laser-gun aimed squarely at his heart. Adrian kept his shield up, as the sarcasm could not be contained.

“She says, to the one person who’s trying to heal the planet.” The shield absorbed another three shots, just barely holding. Adrian hissed again, allowing his wreath of ivy to grow larger, darker, drinking in more sunlight; a nest of roots slithered over his boots to dig into the ground and suck up any available water. Out here on the edges of the swamp, the toxins were not so concentrated that his kidneys couldn’t filter them without a spell to help.

“Jasper! Call the Glade and tell them what we’ve learned!” Wynn called over her shoulder, and Adrian spied Jasper rapidly obeying. Wynn, for her part, was most interested in keeping Adrian away from his test subject, which meant keeping him from moving. Of course, now that Adrian was rooted, he wasn’t going anywhere until he uprooted himself, and Adrian had no weapons besides his spells—which he would need to cast at speed. He and Wynn squared off for a fight, Wynn now waiting for orders to shoot to kill, which would first mean overloading Adrian’s shield; Adrian prepared a spell that would destroy Wynn’s hands and thus prevent her from shooting. He could use other spells once her ability to fight back was removed.

“Wynn?” Jasper called after a long, strained period of inactivity.

“What?” Wynn replied, not shifting away from her ready to kill position.

“The Seer says to let him continue.”

“What?” Wynn and Adrian asked simultaneously, both looking at the other Peacekeeper, and both less ready to kill each other.

“They also say that they’re coming to see the Botanist themselves instead of sending someone. And that we’re not to leave his side,” Jasper looked no less confused than Wynn, even as he half held the caller towards her.

“Are they insane?” Wynn frustratedly asked, stalking towards Jasper and snatching the caller from his grip. Adrian heard a heated argument, though he could not clearly hear exactly what they were saying. For his part, he remained still; even those few scraps of information had world-shaking implications.

The Chief Seer of the Church of the Glade wanted him to continue, even though they had received a no doubt highly negative report of exactly what he was up to. That meant the Chief Seer was an ally. That meant he had religious backing for his work. And _that_ meant he might be able to perform his work in areas beyond where he had settled for the past few months. In addition, the Chief Seer was coming personally, instead of sending, which meant that everything about his work hinged on that one visit…but it also meant that the Seer was personally interested in his work, which meant that he was much more likely to be allowed to continue, and since the Seer had ordered the Peacekeepers to stay with him, it meant the Seer didn’t want word getting around about what Adrian was doing either. At least not yet.

Wynn threw up her hands in disgust, yelling “Fine!” in the general direction of the caller and storming back over to Adrian. “…and why haven’t you moved!” she eventually bellowed, but with her laser gun sheathed and nowhere near her hands.

“I can’t,” Adrian baldly stated. Wynn stared at him, perplexed until Adrian shifted his weight and attempted to lift one boot from the ground. The roots of his ivy held him fast. “It’ll take me a few minutes to uproot, just please be patient,” he told her, slowly working on retracting his roots from the soil. Doing so made him feel dizzy, especially as he furled his many leaves and pulled his stems back into his body. Once the ivy had been fully retracted, with only bright green swirls starkly visible beneath his skin to prove its existence, Adrian drained one of his flasks with shaking fingers. Unlike the flask he had given to his test subject, it did not refill or tune itself to his tastes. The rush of sugar perked him up and made the world quit spinning, but the liquid also drew his attention to an urgent need. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, Keeper…” Adrian mumbled, darting behind a stand of trees to take care of his business.

When he returned, Wynn was still guarding his test subject and watching him with a severe frown. Adrian looked at her, then at the suns’ position in the sky. The little sun was half below the horizon, and the great sun methodically following; more than enough time to reach his usual campsite in the swamp. Although he would need to talk the Peacekeepers into helping him lift his test subject up onto the cart…they would probably prefer to see him struggle, suffer, and eventually fail. Adrian sighed and prepared to lift his test subject back onto the cart with his ivy once again, only for Wynn to smack him on the back of his head.

“Keep that shit covered, monster,” she growled, then wrapped her arms around the test subject and heaved him onto the clearest spot on the back of the cart, which was wedged between a pair of water barrels. “I don’t care how much the Seer likes you, you will always be a monster as far as I’m concerned.” With that, she took a seat atop one of the water barrels, from which she glared down at him.

Adrian simply sighed. “My usual campsite isn’t that much further,” he told Jasper; Wynn’s attitude was fairly typical, and he was all too used to it. Jasper only seemed perplexed by everything he had seen and heard that day, too much so to have decided what he felt. He did, however, stay close to Adrian as they forged deeper into the swamp.

The safe paths in the swamp were far from stable, even for someone on foot. For a small group with a cart, Adrian swiftly had to take the lead and move them slowly along, frequently testing the path ahead with a long, fallen branch he picked up as soon as he could find it. “Don’t walk on the roots,” he warned Jasper, once he noticed the Peacekeeper’s habit of doing so.

“Why not?” Jasper asked, currently balanced on a pair of thick roots. He didn’t wait for an answer before he jumped to another root ahead, just as solid-looking as those he stood on. Adrian lunged forward when Jasper’s sudden weight destabilized the dead tree to which the root was attached, sending it crashing down onto the path and crushing much of it back into muddy water. Adrian only just managed to pull the Peacekeeper out of its path, and Jasper was too stunned to do anything other than cling to his rescuer’s hand.

“That’s why,” Adrian told him, detaching the young man from his arm and stepping forward to examine the blockage. This deep in the swamp, there was no way to simply turn back and choose another path—even if there was, there was no other path forward with the cart. He tested the fallen tree carefully, first with his staff, and then with a foot; it sank, but slowly. “We can roll the cart over it, if we have two people pulling on the front and one person shoving the back,” he said, turning back to look at the Peacekeepers.

Wynn still looked mistrustful. “Why bother saving either of us? So you can eventually turn us into something like this poor man?” she accused, half gesturing down (where Adrian suspected his test subject had woken up), but she did get down off the cart to stand nearly in Adrian’s face, arms crossed and scowling.

Adrian sighed. “I saved him because it was the right thing to do,” he informed her simply. Before she could argue further with him, he spoke again. “You want to be on the front or the back?”

“Front I guess,” Wynn mumbled, grabbing one of the poles intended to harness one of the native, lizard-like horses. Not that Adrian could afford to purchase a horse, let alone keep it alive. Keeping the cart enchanted to follow him was both cheaper and more efficient, and in an emergency, he could simply wrap the poles with his ivy and pull it along that way. _And besides, saving all my coin to purchase a horse purely so I can have a companion animal would be selfish,_ he thought as he took his position around the back of the cart. As he suspected, his test subject was awake, and quickly pretended not to be; Adrian opted not to comment, although he did examine the would-be murderer closely.

Wynn had propped him up against one of the barrels, and the flask Adrian had given him was only just within his reach. He had clearly gained a little more weight, but Wynn had clearly been talking him out of constantly drinking from the flask. Undoubtedly her speaking to him had been distracting him from wanting the flask in the first place. _Not that it mattered,_ Adrian mused, shoving his weight against the back of the cart and pushing for all he was worth; he kept his hands just under the back lip so he could partly lift it when they eventually reached the fallen tree. That much was a simple up and over, and the path on the other side was stable enough to hold the cart without issue; the tree, however, sank completely into the swampy muck and disappeared, such that Adrian had to leap over the space where it had been.

Once on the other side, he circled back around the cart to retake his position at the front, interrupting a conversation between Wynn and Jasper. “…serial thief and murderer, if you remember, Wynn. And yes, it’s horrible, but my sympathies are a bit limited,” was all Adrian caught before Wynn stormed off. Jasper simply sighed and shook his head. “I don’t get it. She never cared about criminals like this before,” he commented, mostly to the empty air, but expecting Adrian to reply in any case.

“I have a suspicion that this precise method of punishment is something of a trigger for her,” Adrian answered. “I can either redo the follow-me spell or we can keep pulling,” he continued, changing the subject and nodding towards the now immobile cart; the original spell he had cast had broken once Wynn and Jasper had grabbed the handles.

Jasper sighed and watched Wynn climb back up onto her chosen barrel—just across from the one Adrian’s would-be killer was propped against—and then spoke. “If you can redo the spell fast, go for it. I don’t think she’ll put up with you doing another ritual.”

As Adrian had feared, and a follow-me spell was costly when not performed as a ritual. More importantly, Adrian would need to save his strength for when they reached camp and had to set up the protective barrier. He simply grabbed the cart handle and began pulling rather than reply; Jasper promptly started helping with the other handle. At each crossroads, they would pause for Adrian to determine which direction was safest; after three, Jasper began to ask him how he knew that was the safest path.

The first time was because the other, most stable path smelled of rotten eggs; that smell meant sulfurous fumes, which could easily kill them if they became too strong, and also signaled the presence of other poisonous gases. The second time Adrian spotted a distant cloud of what he knew to be mutated blood-sucking insects—insects that would drink until they exploded or until no blood was left. The third time he saw the mud bubbling next to the path—a sign both of more poisonous gases and of unstable ground. Fortunately, Adrian spotted one of the paths he had made stable using specially-created ivy—a sort with a vascular system he’d modeled after a human kidney, and with a few modified kidneys woven in as a backup system to keep the toxins out of the plant. He led them along the slightly upward-sloping path without comment.

“I hope this is camp…” Jasper managed between gasps for breath, carefully keeping to the middle of the path, away from the masses of ivy clustering around the stable path.

“It is,” Adrian answered. The great sun was almost entirely below the horizon; much later than when Adrian normally arrived, and no doubt owing to them having had to pull the cart along the path themselves and not depend on the follow-me spell. He dug in his feet and heaved to get the cart over the last lump of ivy and into the stabilized clearing. Here, he had built semi-permanent shelves and storage areas into the ivy weaving between surrounding trees—or, in some cases, long poles. In other clearings within the swamp, the ground was far too muddy to remain in place for more than a single day; in some cases, Adrian had woken to find his tent flooded with swamp water. But here, in this clearing protected with ivy, the plant roots wove into a sufficiently solid network to keep the earth where it was and suck away any water that would otherwise have washed the ground away.

And so, in this clearing, opportunistic trees had begun to grow and sprout. Only one had grown large enough to be counted a sapling, and its original seed had fallen near the middle of the clearing, thus giving it access to as much precious sunlight as it could require. Adrian let go of the cart next to it, swearing slightly and shaking out his arms, resisting the urge to spread his own leaves and catch the last few rays of sunlight. Had they reached the clearing in better time, he would have happily sunned himself, but as it was, he barely had enough time to set up his tent.

He was about half-finished when he realized Wynn was watching him. “Kidneys,” she said when he looked up at her.

“Lab-grown and only based on human-standard. They’re specifically designed to work with the ivy out here,” he replied, knowing exactly what she meant.

“Amazing,” she told him, dryly. “I kind of expected you to have a guy chained up somewhere growing infinite kidneys for you.”

 _How in the hells would that even work?_ Adrian wondered, too baffled and mildly disgusted by the idea to immediately answer. He must have made a few puzzled noises before he finally managed real words. “I…just. Just no!” he exclaimed. “The hells kind of—why!” His partially constructed tent fell down as punctuation. With a groan, he knelt and started again with more muttering. Wynn hadn’t quite left, but she did wait for him to finish setting up his tent before she spoke again.

“So why not just cover the swamp with this ivy then?” she asked with the last glimmer of sun peering over the horizon. By then, Adrian was too exhausted to speak with any degree of tact.

“For the same fucking reason you plant beans, corn, and pumpkins together, Wynn. You don’t plant any of those plants all by themselves because they all grow better when planted together and because if a disease or parasite or some shit comes along, they’re more likely to survive. Good night,” he said, and then crawled into his tent, where he passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last prewritten chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> In which we meet Adrian, a botanist-mage intent on saving the world from an ongoing climate disaster with not entirely ethical science-magic. This is an original work that I first started posted on dA, and it's unfinished. I'm hoping that posting it here will give me more motivation to write more of it. Tags will probably change.


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